Wedding Bells and Wall Street Bros

by Alina Jacobs

  Brea swallowed and looked down at the floor. “I uh—” Her lips parted slightly.

  “Do you need a little reminder?” I whispered, leaning closer, my breath hot against her lips.

  “Maybe,” she said, voice barely audible.

  I closed the distance, pressing my mouth to hers. Brea arched against me, moaning slightly as my hands traveled up her body. I deepened the kiss, letting our tongues tangle together.

  My phone dinged, and I broke the kiss.

  “We should probably get back,” Brea said, twisting the hem of her blazer as I looked at the phone.

  Memphis Eve: There’s fireworks on the pier. Want to come? Could get some nice pictures! *Kissy face emoji*

  Brea glanced at my phone then back up at me. I remembered her words last night: she didn’t want me with Memphis Eve.

  “I have an offer for a date at the fireworks,” I told her dryly.

  “Porta potties. Insects. Crowds,” Brea fired off.

  “Hm. I would much rather go to a restaurant.”

  Brea nodded. “Yes, you should go to a restaurant instead.”

  “Would you like to go with me?”

  I didn’t miss that her gaze went to my phone before she said yes.

  21

  Brea

  Fuck.

  “This is terrible! I screwed up!” I wailed to my friends after I had shoved Mark into the elevator.

  Elsie glared at me. “Is it going to be as bad as the time your man crush brought barbecue to my bridal tea?”

  Grace made soothing noises and petted her hair. “Nothing will ever be that bad.”

  Ivy scooted her big fat cat, who liked to laze in front of the window, out of the way and sat down on the couch. “Does it have anything to do with the three couture dresses you’re supposed to be crafting?”

  “Uhhh, okay, so I may have a steaming pile of problems.”

  “I hope the Holbrooks aren’t complaining that you’re not treating Mark nicely,” Sophie said.

  “I’m treating him very nicely,” I muttered.

  “What’s that?” Amy said loudly. “You’re thinking about sleeping with one of our clients?”

  “No! It was an accident. Okay, well, it was sort of on purpose, but I had a good reason! I swear!”

  My friends looked at me in horror.

  “Brea, you didn’t,” Ivy said.

  “You’re one to talk,” Sophie said with a snort.

  “I didn’t sleep with him!” I shrieked in indignation. “I’m not that stupid; I just kissed him once. Then he kissed me back. Then he did it again today. But I didn’t want to kiss him,” I tried to explain, digging myself deeper into the hole. “I was forced to—”

  “He forced you?” Grace said in horror.

  Elsie yelled, “Where’s my gun?”

  “Good lord!” Sophie said, crossing herself.

  “No, no! No guns! My evil twin sister has shown up unannounced to ruin my life.”

  “Wait!” Elsie commanded, jumping up to walk quickly toward the kitchen.

  “You’re not going to shoot Mark, are you?” I asked helplessly.

  “No, I’m making popcorn.”

  My friends ate popcorn and gasped at all the right places as I gave the rundown of the Memphis Eve–Mark Holbrook drama, accompanied by an interpretive dance.

  “And then,” I said dramatically, “he asked me on a date. End scene.”

  Sophie applauded, and Elsie rolled her eyes.

  “You obviously can’t go. You have to set him straight.”

  “But my sister,” I exclaimed, stealing a handful of popcorn. “She’s waiting in the wings to sink her teeth into poor, traumatized Mark.”

  “You really have it bad for this guy, huh?” Sophie said as she swept a popcorn kernel around the side of the bowl to scrape up more butter.

  Ivy stole a buttery piece from her stash. “I have a solution,” my friend said. “Go on the date, but be as obnoxious, clingy, and weird as possible. If he’s super horny, he’ll ask you on a couple more dates. You just have to string him along. In the meantime, we’ll figure out a way to boot Memphis Eve back to whatever Instagrammer hell she came from.”

  “Operation Be a Weirdo on a Date will now commence,” I said later as my friends all packed into my tiny bedroom.

  “Scrunchies,” Amy insisted. “You have to show up with neon scrunchies in your hair and a really weird outfit.”

  “It can’t be a costume, though,” Elsie warned, “or Mark will think something’s up. He’s not an idiot. I bet he knows you don’t like Memphis Eve, but I bet he thinks it’s because you’re both dumb girls fighting over his dick, not because you’re literally throwing yourself in the line of fire to preserve his sanity.”

  Sophie and Amy swooned. “It’s so romantic!”

  “Stop it!” Elsie snapped. “We are businesswomen; we need to act like we have some sense.”

  “I wonder how big his dick is!” Amy said with a snicker.

  Elsie threw up her hands in exasperation.

  “You know what I think?” Ivy asked, pawing through my closet. “You need to wear the self-care skirt.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “I feel like that veers into costume territory.”

  “No,” Ivy said. “It’s perfect. It feels like something a quirky seamstress would wear.”

  The self-care skirt was something I had made in a cream cheese brownie ice cream–fueled self-care episode. My parents’ apartment was not big enough to have a bath, and I was loath to burn candles surrounded by thousands of dollars’ worth of antique lace. Therefore, I had made myself loungewear out of scraps of my favorite fabric. I had chosen the softest pieces and cut them out into triangles. The final effect was as if a quilt had been made into an Edwardian walking skirt. There was a piece of extra satin here, a piece of faux fur there. It was colorful, garish, and felt delightfully heavy when I walked around the apartment. When I really wanted to get into the sewing zone, I put that skirt on. I felt very Little Women swishing around the apartment wearing it.

  “If I wear that skirt, I can’t do a scrunchie, I need to do a bow,” I decided.

  “And very strong-smelling perfume,” Grace said, spraying me with chocolate crème brûlée body mist.

  Mark’s eyes widened slightly when he saw me.

  Good, good. I mentally rubbed my hands together. It doesn’t matter that you are the hottest kisser around, I bet a Roomba that you’re going to cut this date off short and kick me to the curb. Hopefully you’ll swear off dating completely and ignore Memphis Eve.

  “You look lovely,” Mark said, leaning in to kiss me. It was not a polite, perfunctory kiss. It was a hot and steamy kiss that made me want to lift up my skirt and let him go shopping.

  “Do you like my outfit?” I asked, gasping when he released me.

  Mark looked me up and down. “Love it.”

  Dude must be hornier than I thought.

  Mark rested a hand on my lower back and escorted me into the restaurant.

  “This is a new establishment that’s known for its shellfish,” Mark informed me as he pulled out my chair.

  You need to try harder to ruin this date. “I only want dessert,” I told him, sitting down.

  He cocked his head. “You only want dessert?”

  I nodded. I hadn’t eaten a real lunch, and my stomach chose that moment to growl. I clapped a hand over it. “Is that okay?” I chirped.

  “Of course. I guess I should have known,” Mark said with a slight smile. “Someone who eats cake for breakfast is going to want chocolate mousse for dinner.”

  He didn’t even crack.

  The server came by to take our orders. As she listed the specials, I tried to refrain from drooling.

  “I’ll have the fish,” Mark said. “And Brea wants to start with her dessert.”

  The server was too polite to make a face, but she paused for a beat, probably to take in my ridiculous outfit, then asked, “And what dessert would you like?”

&n
bsp; “Let me guess,” Mark said, sliding the menu across the table, “you want the brownie terrarium.”

  “Uh,” I said, “sure.”

  The server placed a basket of bread with herb butter on the table.

  “You don’t want any bread?” Mark asked, “I’m sure they can provide some syrup with it if you’d like.” There was that slight smirk on his mouth. “You know, I’ve never met anyone with a sweet tooth like yours.”

  Yeah, me neither, and I can feel my teeth falling out just from looking at that dessert menu.

  The bread called to me. Bread and butter were two of my favorite food groups.

  It’s bad enough that you’re going on a date with him. If you actually tried to be pleasant, he might actually like you. Then you’d be just as bad as his ex-girlfriend Rhonda and Memphis Eve.

  My control almost slipped when the server brought out our entrées—or entrée in Mark’s case and terrible idea in mine. My stomach growled as the server set down the sizzling fish fillets in front of him. Lightly breaded with a lemony cream sauce, cheesy garlicky mashed potatoes, and broccoli rabe, the dinner looked so good I wanted to snatch the plate from Mark and scarf down the fish.

  “That’s a very interesting-looking dessert,” Mark said as the server set an edible terrarium in front of me. The glass bowl was made out of clear sugar. The dirt was brownie pieces. The plants were made out of what looked like dried molasses. There were some cookie animals for decoration.

  I’m going to puke, I thought as I took a bite.

  “Delicious,” I said and crunched through the sugar-glass bowl. “Best thing I’ve ever eaten.”

  Crunch.

  “I think I’m going to lose my appetite watching you eat all that sugar,” Mark joked.

  Please do! my stomach screeched. I want that pan-fried fish and the cheesy mashed potatoes!

  I took another bite of the terrarium. It tasted like bad decisions.

  “So we’re going to look at flowers tomorrow,” I said, eating a bite of brownie. It coated my tongue, and I sipped the ice water, trying not to grimace.

  I’m never eating another sweet food again. From now on, I will only eat healthy—well, scratch that, I will only eat tasty savory foods.

  “I think Wes is coming,” I told Mark. “So you don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

  “No, I’ll come,” he said as he cut off a piece of the fish.

  The smell wafted over to me. I took another agonizing bite of the dessert.

  “I want to watch you get all huffy about the flowers.” Mark grinned.

  Maybe it was all the sugar, but that heavy-lidded look Mark was giving me and the way he sipped his drink were giving me all kinds of ideas of things I would rather do with him than act like a weirdo on a date.

  You don’t even like him, I tried to remind myself over the sound of my libido, which had had way too much sugar and caffeine and was spinning on the carousel of lust at a hundred miles per hour.

  Mark cut off a bite of the fish and held it out to me on his fork. “You sure you don’t want a taste?” he asked in that deliciously low voice. “You might like it. Just take one little bite. There’s only a little left.”

  An attractive man offering me fried food, nay, begging me to eat it, to taste him—wait, it.

  I leaned over, and Mark slipped the fork into my mouth. The tremors of my teeth traveled through the fork, and he caught his lower lip in his teeth slightly as I took the bite. When the flaky fish hit my tongue, my stomach shrieked that if it did not have that food right now, it was going to hurl that sugar terrarium all over this nice restaurant, and wouldn’t that just be a shame.

  I wrapped a hand around Mark’s that was still extended to me. He blew out a soft breath then strangled a curse when I wrenched the fork out of his hand, grabbed the half-eaten entrée, pulled it toward me, and scarfed down the remaining fish, potatoes, and greens like a starving lemming.

  Mark stared at me in shock.

  After I ate several bites of the salty, cheesy potatoes, I said around them, “You offered it to me! You can’t offer someone food then get mad when they eat it!”

  “I could have ordered you another entrée,” Mark said in bemusement as we left the restaurant.

  You are a troll, Brea, I chastised myself. An absolute disgrace, really, when you come right down to it.

  “I’m fine,” I said, still fantasizing about those potatoes…and that handsome man serving them to me. I did feel bad that I was being a weirdo on the date.

  That was the point. You don’t want to lead him on and manipulate him. You are trying to drive him away.

  “This was,” Mark said, eyes slightly narrowed, “probably the strangest date I’ve ever been on.”

  I shrugged helplessly. “I’m just a weirdo.”

  Mark laughed as he opened the car door for me. “You are completely unique. I’m quite infatuated with you.”

  Geez, you kiss a guy once or twice, and suddenly he’s planning your future. And they say women are the emotional, irrational ones in a relationship.

  But if Mark was being emotional, then I was being seriously horny. I couldn’t help but fixate on him—his hand on the gear shift, the other casually on the door rest, the streetlights flickering across his brow and straight nose and strong jaw—well, let’s just say it had been a while since I’d had any.

  Mark pulled up in front of my apartment. “Brea,” he said in that deep voice.

  Get out of the car, Brea.

  No! My libido was still riding the carousel. Mark was even more appetizing than his dinner. He leaned over me and brushed his mouth over the corner of mine. Then he kissed me softly. It was just a taste, but like with the dinner, I was a starving woman and did not make good decisions. I tangled my fingers in his hair, crushing his face to mine.

  Mark chuckled, the sound vibrating through me, then he angled his body to kiss me more deeply. I cursed the long skirt as his hands roamed over my body. One of his large hands slipped under my shirt to caress my breast. I moaned as his fingers trailed over my skin. I finally got ahold of myself as he started shifting the volume of the skirt fabric for better access.

  “We have a big day tomorrow,” I said with a gasp, pushing him off.

  Mark kissed me one more time then stepped out of the car to walk me to the door. “Shall I pick you up?” he asked, eyes a deep blue in the evening light.

  “Nope!” I chirped, frantically trying to readjust my clothes in the dark.

  Mark kissed me once again before he left. The only thing stopping me from dragging him up to my room was the fact that I, one, lived with my parents and, two, did not have a bed that Mark could fit in.

  That went well. Which was terrible for obvious reasons.

  “Gah! Why didn’t this work? I clearly wasn’t trying to make a good impression,” I fumed as I stomped up the narrow staircase to my parents’ apartment.

  I felt nauseous from the amount of sugar I’d eaten. Then my phone dinged, and I truly almost puked.

  Memphis Eve: You there? I’m stopping by.

  22

  Mark

  “Wanna come on a double date with me?” my grandfather asked when I walked into my parents’ condo. My father was nursing what was probably not his first drink of the day. It was understandable; my grandfather was a handful.

  “I uh—”

  “I’m dating this real broad; you ought to see her! She basically threw herself at me,” my grandfather bragged.

  Harris Holbrook had notoriously disastrous taste in girlfriends. They were all younger than me, and they were all textbook examples of gold diggers.

  “Isn’t Ida swell?” my grandfather said, pulling up a picture on his phone and showing me. The photo showed an older woman with purple lipstick and a shock of short white hair.

  “At least it’s a woman his own age,” my uncle Walter said, tossing back his drink.

  “Now Mark, I don’t like to hear that you’re not dating,” my grandfather said loud
ly. “I asked your father, and he said you were moping around.”

  “I’m not moping,” I said.

  My grandfather steamrolled ahead. “Now sure, that broad you had hanging around tried to kill you, but you have to get back on the horse. Hell, one of my old flames tried to kill your brother, but you don’t see me wallowing in my own pity! I went back out there and grabbed the bull by the horns. That’s how I found Ida. She is incredible in the sack. You know, she has this whole sex toy business.”

  “I literally did not want to know that,” I said helplessly.

  My grandfather handed me a sack that read Bath and Body Twerk.

  “I told her all about your issues. She has several performance-enhancing products in there. She assembled a whole gift set just for you.”

  He held it out to me, but I didn’t take it. So my grandfather draped the bag’s handles around my neck then patted my shoulder.

  “Ida has a friend she said would be very interested in you.” He swiped to another picture and stuck it in my face.

  “This woman looks like she’s eighty, Granddad!”

  “You have to take baby steps back into dating,” my grandfather insisted. “Dottie would just be practice. I hear you all are going to Harrogate tomorrow to pick out a plant, right?”

  “Flowers for the bouquets and decorations,” I corrected him.

  My uncle handed me a glass filled to the brim with scotch. “I don’t know why,” Uncle Walter said dryly, “but for some reason, he inspires me to drink.”

  “It’s because I’m a real man, and real men drink!” Harris bragged.

  “And philander and have questionable taste in women apparently,” my father, Jack, said dryly.

  “So shall I put you down for a date?” my grandfather asked.